Federal, state funds help food banks support local producers

Skim milk isn’t typically a big seller with the regular customer base at Dan and Debbie’s Creamery in Ely, but the process of making the company’s more popular products — butter and cream — leaves a lot of skim milk behind. Until a few years ago, that usually resulted either in the creamery not making enough butter to meet daily demand, or bottling extra skim milk that didn’t sell and had to be thrown out.

About two years ago, the creamery started a partnership with the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program (HACAP) — which operates a food reservoir that supplies food pantries in Linn and six other counties — in which the nonprofit buys skim milk from the creamery for a reduced price.

“The cool thing about our partnership with HACAP, is the families that are getting the milk are getting the freshest milk, as opposed to seconds, where it's about ready to expire,” said Josie Rozum, the operations and marketing manager for Dan and Debbie’s Creamery.

The creamery delivers around 500 gallons of milk every Tuesday, and Rozum said the partnership has allowed Dan and Debbie’s to produce and sell more butter while reducing waste. It also has helped the small business create a consistent production routine despite changing customer whims.

“Once we started this partnership, it really allowed us to grow. It allowed us to expand our employee base, and it's been a tremendous amount of help,” Rozum said. “And they always say, ‘You guys are doing us such a big favor,’ but the feeling is very, very mutual, because we're so grateful for this partnership and all that it allows us to do.”

The partnership got its start because of the federal Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, or LFPA program, which provides funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to food banks across the country. The LFPA funding is used specifically to purchase food from local farmers and producers, with a focus on socially disadvantaged farmers.

Since the LFPA program started in 2022, HACAP has worked with other nonprofits that deal directly with local growers, like Feed Iowa First and Field to Family. That helps it identify and begin working with immigrant farmers, women-owned businesses, LGBTQ-owned businesses, and others that fit the definition of socially disadvantaged, said Kim Guardado, director of the HACAP Food Reservoir.

“We built some really meaningful relationships and were able to get some culturally appropriate foods, specifically referring to some of the immigrant farmers with Feed Iowa First. They were growing foods that they had formerly grown in Africa, but they figured out how to grow here in Iowa, and so then we had some of those culturally appropriate foods that we could provide out through our pantry network,” Guardado said.

The LFPA program is currently on its third funding cycle. The USDA has announced the program will be renewed in 2025, but details of that renewal have not been made available yet.

Before knowing that the LFPA program was going to be renewed, Guardado said HACAP and a other food banks with the Iowa Food Banks Association talked with elected officials in the state about creating a similar state program to continue to provide funding to get locally grown food into food pantries. Those conversations resulted in the creation of Choose Iowa, a state-funded program administered through the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship that provides some funding for local foods, with food banks matching that funding dollar-for-dollar.

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Funds from the Choose Iowa program became available to pantries during this fiscal year. HACAP received $46,000 from the state, which it used to purchase from nine different local producers, Guardado said. Food banks are advocating for more funding to support the program in the next legislative cycle.

Michelle Kenyon, executive director of Field to Family, said working with HACAP through Choose Iowa and LFPA has allowed the farmers that work with Field to Family to plan their growing seasons with the needs of food banks in mind, and the knowledge that they will have at least one consistent buyer.

“It’s a state investment in local foods, which is incredible … (HACAP) has their own mission and vision. They have their own goals, and this is just one more tool that they can access to help meet that goal of reducing food insecurity in our state,” Kenyon said. “It's a huge problem that they're trying to solve and that they're working really hard at. So, any tools that can go toward helping them provide that support would be great, and this is one of them.”

Kenyon and Guardado both emphasized that the state and federal programs have allowed the food bank to focus on buying not only fresh produce from local farmers, but food that covers a wide cultural need, Guardado said.

“I think the most important thing is that the money that we’re spending … is staying right here in our state. We do a lot of purchasing, so we’re buying a lot of different kinds of food from distributors all across the Midwest, and this allows us to be able to buy from these smaller companies, growers, family-owned businesses … so that all of that money is staying in our community. It’s a huge way to continue to boost the economy,” Guardado said.

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